The Trade of Ambiguity: How Hermeneutics Turned Clarity into a Marketplace

By Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam 14 October 2025 Preface This article began as a response to Ashrof’s defence of hermeneutics in his article: Why Meaning and Implementation Are Inseparable, but it quickly outgrew the boundaries of a mere exchange. It addresses something far deeper — the entire intellectual industry that thrives on turning divine clarity into human confusion. Over centuries, a clerical class has transformed the Qur’an’s plain meaning into an interpretive marketplace, where ambiguity is currency and scholars trade in obscurity. What follows is not simply a rebuttal; it is a declaration — that the Qur’an is a Book Mubeen (clear), that true scholarship restores rather than replaces its meaning, and that the time has come to reclaim the plain sense of revelation from those who profit by complicating it. Introduction Every scholar who makes a living out of “interpreting” scripture thrives on one thing: ambiguity. Clarity is death to their trade. When a verse is clear, it needs no scholar — and therefore, no middleman. That is why such scholars love obscurity, allegory, and “multiple layers of meaning.” It allows them to remain indispensable — gatekeepers of a meaning they themselves invented. The Prophet brought a Book Mubeen — clear, self-consistent, internally verified. But the post-Prophetic clerical class turned that clarity into a marketplace. They blurred what was clear, then sold the blur as “scholarship.” The greater the confusion, the higher their value as interpreters of the confusion they created. These are intellectual parasites — thriving on ambiguity, allergic to precision, and terrified of self-evidence. They cannot live off truth; they live off uncertainty. Their currency is complication, their product is confusion, and their piety is performance. True scholarship is the opposite: it restores clarity where confusion has been manufactured. It illuminates without distorting. It explains without rewriting. It reads the Qur’an as God’s clear communication to humankind — not as a cryptic codebook needing a priesthood to decode it. That is why the “hermeneutical” scholars of every age have hated those who argue from the plain meaning. The plain meaning eliminates their profession. It exposes their dependency on human authority, where only divine guidance should suffice. So, when you see a scholar waxing lyrical about “layers of meaning,” “dynamic ethics,” and “the evolving horizon of textuality,” know this: he is protecting his income, not the Qur’an. Shun them. They are not guides — they are middlemen of confusion, and the Qur’an came precisely to abolish their kind. The Plain Meaning and Its Latitude The beauty of the Qur’an’s plain meaning is that it already provides latitude — broad moral guidance that adapts to circumstances without distorting principle. (7:31) O Children of Adam! Wear your beautiful apparel at every time and place of prayer; eat and drink, but waste not by excess, for Allah loves not the wasters. (2:215) They ask thee what they should spend. Say: Whatever ye spend that is good, is for parents and kindred and orphans and those in want and for wayfarers. (17:29) Make not thy hand tied (like a miser’s) to thy neck, nor stretch it forth to its utmost reach, lest thou become blameworthy and destitute. The message is simple and profound: enjoy Allah’s blessings — eat, drink, wear, and live well — but do not waste. Exercise moderation. Give in charity what is beyond your needs, but neither hoard miserly nor impoverish yourself in the name of generosity. These verses leave wide room for legitimate variation — differences in lifestyle shaped by culture, environment, and means. There is no rigidity here. The plain meaning itself allows freedom within moral limits. 2. The Qur’an’s Advisory Verses (e.g., 4:34) Show the Same Flexibility Some verses are advisory in nature. For instance, 4:34 outlines a graduated process for marital discord. But nothing prevents a husband from proceeding straight to divorce, nor a woman from saying, “Accept me as I am or divorce me.” The verse’s plain meaning itself contains latitude; it suggests steps for reconciliation, not immutable commands. When the Qur’an allows options, that flexibility is part of the meaning — not a defect to be “interpreted” away. No hermeneuticist has pointed out that 4:34 is non-binding and advisory, subject to explicit conditions and without compromising the woman’s agency to prefer divorce and refuse reform. They are instead busy euphemising Daraba. 3. 2:282 Shows the Same Flexibility Likewise, 2:282 is a concession, not a requirement, for women witnesses to testify jointly. The hermeneuticists transformed it into a rule demanding two separate testimonies, thereby rendering women’s testimony “half” that of a man’s. Ashrof defends their hermeneutics, though it goes directly against the plain meaning. For him, plain meaning is anathema. It is anything except plain, which he brands a “fallacy.” The plain meaning made life easy, offering options and flexibility; the hermeneuticists made it rigid through their patriarchal and misogynistic distortions. The cure — or true ijtihad — is to return to the clear meaning of the verse. 4. Tadabbur and Tafakkur: Discovering Wisdom, Not Rewriting Meaning The Qur’an invites reflection (Tadabbur, Tafakkur), but reflection is not license to change meaning — it is the discovery of hikmah (wisdom) within the clear text. For example, in verse 4:15, the Qur’an prescribes confinement for women guilty of lewdness “until Allah ordains for them another way,” while 4:16 imposes only temporary censure for men committing the same act. The text does not explain this distinction — reflection does. In earlier human history, female reproductive capacity was an existential asset; losing even a few women to infertility or isolation threatened community survival. Male fertility, by contrast, was expendable. Thus the stricter punishment was pragmatic, not unequal. Today, when humanity faces no such demographic risk, the principle (moral disapproval of sexual deviance) remains, but the penal form may evolve — as 4:15 itself anticipates (“until Allah ordains for them another way”). That is Tadabbur: uncovering wisdom behind the clear verse, not reinventing meaning. Ashrof’s hermeneutics does the opposite — it dissolves meaning first, then congratulates itself for rediscovering “ethical universals.” The classical hermeneutists, unable to explain the difference between 4:15 and 4:16, declared both abrogated by 24:2 — which concerns heterosexual fornication, not homosexuality! 5. Muhkam and Mutashabih: The Qur’an’s Own Categories The Qur’an distinguishes between verses that are clear and foundational (Muhkamat) and those metaphorical or allegorical (Mutashabihat). When the text says, “He created the heavens and the earth in six days and established Himself on the Throne” (10:3), it is Mutashabih: the “Throne” is a metaphor for authority, and the “days” represent distinct stages — as in “Judgment Day,” meaning a period of unspecified duration. But when it says, “O Children of Adam, wear your beautiful apparel” (7:31), it is Muhkam: clear, direct, and actionable. Ashrof’s hermeneutics collapses this Qur’anic distinction, treating every verse as a puzzle to decode, thereby replacing divine clarity with human speculation. 6. Delegated Matters: Where the Prophet Defines the Practice Ashrof confuses delegation with ambiguity. When the Qur’an leaves a matter to the Prophet, that is not a gap; it is divine delegation. Prayer is a prime example. The Qur’an gives general guidance — “Establish prayer at the two ends of the day and at the approach of the night…” (11:114) “Establish prayer at the decline of the sun till the darkness of night, and at dawn…” (17:78–79) The Prophet defined its form by demonstration. The Qur’an then commands: “Follow the Messenger.” If the Prophet allowed variation — combining prayers during travel, shortening them, or adapting them under constraint — those were within the domain Allah deliberately left flexible. There is nothing to interpret — only to follow. 7. Maqāṣid Operate in Moral Dilemmas, Not in Decoding Text Ashrof’s use of Maqaṣid al-Sharī’ah (the higher objectives of law) is equally misplaced. Maqāṣid are invoked when moral duties conflict, not when reading plain verses. Suppose a man must choose between caring for his ailing mother — who has no one else — and joining a military expedition. Both duties are sacred. Maqāṣid resolve such conflicts by prioritizing preservation of life and filial duty unless combat becomes personally obligatory. That is their proper domain — ethical adjudication, not textual manipulation. 8. Conclusion: Divine Precision, Not Human Simplism The Qur’an’s plain meaning already carries elasticity, balance, and moral depth. It does not need hermeneutical rescue. It is the hermeneuticists — including Ashrof — who made what was flexible rigid through their misinterpretations. The proof is their dependence on abrogation to escape contradictions created by their own readings. My approach — taking the plain meaning — conforms to the Qur’an’s principle of non-contradiction (4:82). That principle only has meaning when no verse is treated as abrogated. Ashrof has not produced a single example where the plain meaning fails, while I have shown several where hermeneutics produced rigidity, contradiction, and misogyny. To claim that every verse requires reconstruction is to claim the right to mould revelation to prejudice — giving full play to patriarchy and bigotry. We therefore need a movement to reclaim the plain meaning of the Qur’an and purge Islamic thought of the inherited distortions of hermeneutics. In the end, hermeneutics is the last refuge of the insecure scholar — the one who cannot live with a clear text because a clear text leaves him unemployed. Their art is not interpretation; it is intellectual taxidermy — stuffing the living word of God and displaying it as an academic specimen. The Qur’an, by contrast, speaks with living authority. It does not need intermediaries. It needs minds that think and hearts that believe. ----- A frequent contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Naseer Ahmed is an independent researcher and Quran-centric thinker whose work bridges faith, reason, and contemporary knowledge systems. Through a method rooted in intra-Quranic analysis and scientific coherence, the author has offered ground-breaking interpretations that challenge traditional dogma while staying firmly within the Quran’s framework. His work represents a bold, reasoned, and deeply reverent attempt to revive the Quran’s message in a language the modern world can test and trust. URL: https://www.newageislam.com/debating-islam/ambiguity-hermeneutics-clarity-marketplace/d/137242 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism